The Wizard

Heavy Metal

Mevner's astral projection returned to his body just before dawn. He awoke refreshed and excited to share their progress of the night before. He sat and ate with Pathos and Bill, only drawing minor looks from the other guests. As a rule, prospectors tended to mind their own business. 

"We should pay and be on our way. We can pick up the others at the forge on the way out of town. I don't know if Redwing has a line to the goings of this town, but I hardly trust the bank." 

They settled their tab and headed over to the forge. Bill, once again, waited outside with the horses. Øregård and an iron copy of himself were pumping the bellows, loading ore, and running the forge at top capacity. The foreman approached Mevner when he entered. 

"I'd like you to know we squared your debt with the bank. And furthermore, last night's work was a revelation to our craftsmen. They're all asleep now dreaming of metallurgic improvements to our facility and our process. Mr. Grimble and yourself are geniuses in your craft. These two here, in the last hour, have done a week's worth of work. Is there anything we could do to convince you to stay?"

Mevner shook the foreman's extended hand. 

"I'm afraid we must be on our way. Place this in your furnace and it will burn for a year with no need for fuel." He handed the foreman a fire ruby. 

"Why thank you. Thank you, good sir. Thank you very much. And the war hammer, sir, it is complete would you like to see it?"

"Indeed." Mevner signaled the two Øregårds over. 

The iron cast Øregård was slightly smaller and all solid metal muscle, as if its ogre skin had been removed and only indestructible innards remained. Mr. Grimble's small face could be seen peering out its right eye and in the hollow socket of the left sat the Animator Stone. Its mouth was just a sealed shut line. Its other bodily features were simplified and reinforced. It stomped when it walked with heavy metallic thuds. It bent legs, arms, and torso at bolted joints. Grimble used the construct's steel arms to reach into the cooling bath and brought out a mammoth war hammer forged from leftover titanium. 

"Merde." Pathos looked on in disbelief. 

"Set your hammer on the anvil, Grimble."

The metal golem followed the commands of the gnome becoming an extension of himself. He lifted the great hammer and slammed it down with a clank on the forge's main anvil. Mevner took the last of the fire rubies and pounded it into the side of the block-shaped hammer's head. 

"It will protect you from the dragon's fire."  

"That is most excellent, my fine friend, but no dragon fire is going to hurt this suit." Grimble beamed with pride from within his latest creation. 

***

When they hit the main road out of town, Øregård and the iron golem drew attention. The two warriors walked out of Fool's Gold, one with an evil looking heavy broadsword in hand and the other with a silver war hammer slung across his shoulder. Bill, who was usually a spectacle himself, paled in comparison but didn't seem to mind.

He took the lead and they rode single file up the long and winding road that would eventually lead to the castle. They traveled all day and never passed a single person on the trail. By nightfall, they had reached the monastery and last place to shelter before the castle. 

The monks set up the monster and the golem as they referred to them in the basement with the horses and offered simple single bedrooms for Pathos and Ozgold. Bill chose to sleep with the monks in their dormitory. He sparred with the brothers in their dojo; for they were more than meditation masters, they were also masters of their physical bodies as well. 

Mevner saw a new side of William Hanuman when he was among the order. He was disciplined and rigidly postured, not the slouching lump he normally presented himself as. His room overlooked the training courtyard and he watched Bill fight off four monks at once in hand to hand combat. Bill as a student was absorbed in his lessons. 

Mevner sat on the floor of his room looking out the window into the star-filled sky over the mountain. He held the Knowing Diamond in his palm and focused his mind on the dragon and on him being at the castle. The diamond pulsed once, a very positive sign. He closed his hands around the rock and asked if Øregård could kill it this time. In his mind, he saw the great beast Luhng in all his terror. His head was the focus. A huge toothed mouth opened and fire burst forth. Øregård stood covered in blood and holding the black Sword of Doom above his head, his eyes filled with rage and dread. 

A scream from down the hall ripped Mevner away from his vision, he jumped to his feet and ran to Pathos' room. She backed out of the doorway into the hall. Inside her room was the ghostly apparition of Toven Hex. 

"We know you're coming. You march to your doom." She moaned in a raspy voice. 

She turned around and saw Mevner. Her expression turned from intimidation to shock. 

"Diggs, you're alive?!"

"I am, Shining Raven. Are you at the castle?" He smiled, happy to see her again. 

"Diggs, don't come here. Run away. He doesn't know you live. Leave before he finds out." 

Her small figure ran forward and wrapped misty arms around Mevner. Her jet black hair had a purplish glow in her astral form and floated about her head as if she were underwater. Her left eye had a radiant purple light in comparison to her other of pale blue. Mevner put out his arms and embraced the phantom who was his adopted sister and lifelong closest friend. 

"Why did you abandon the lighthouse?" 

"The dragon is free, Diggs, the master is dead. Malzovado is my new master. He told me you were dead. That Melock killed you." 

"Redwing killed Melock and he crippled me with the gauntlets and left me for dead." 

"Then you understand his power. He believes he is the Necromancer reincarnate. You can not defeat him."

"I can." Mevner stepped back, opened his palm, and showed her the diamond as it pulsed in the positive.

"The Knowing Diamond! I searched everywhere for it. You know it doesn't tell all." 

She looked about herself in a panicked cagey way. "I must go. Heed my warning and stay away. All the better for you if he never discovers you're alive. Go and live a good life, Diggs. Don't follow me. Don't do what I have done." 

Her apparition vanished like a puff of smoke in the air.